Rooster: Hell, I'm Not Perfect
That timed I conspired against a drug trafficker, Ohio squeezes poor veterans, and more.
Nothing like being on vacation — eating delectable hummus on the patio of The Harvest in Blue Ridge, Georgia, to be specific — when Earle Bruce’s disgraced carnival barker of a grandson claps back on Twitter with the darkest chapter of your life.
In ten years I’ll wish I took the high road with my response. Unfortunately I’ve been arguing online since 1993 and two years ago I watched a white-collar sex criminal defeat a flawed but credible candidate for the highest elected office in the world despite earning three million fewer votes.
Americans long ago deluded themselves into thinking the high road automatically leads to victory. Not me. I ain’t Jesus. I have no problem lowering myself into the muck and hog-tying an unrepentant pig hellbent on embarrassing my favorite college football program.
Fair warning to my fans and sponsors: The code of the poster compels me to accept any podcast invite. For the sake of Urban Meyer and Earle Bruce’s legacies, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
But I’ll be damned if anyone thinks I have skeletons into the closet they can toss into the sunlight and embarrass me. Allow me to disavow the notion my criticism comes from a position of “never have done anything wrong in my life.”
THAT TIME I CONSPIRED TO ROB AN INTERSTATE DRUG TRAFFICKER
My future ambitions depend on an honest accounting of the worst decisions of my life, and I am thankful for an opportunity to type about the worst one without being shackled by terse campaign-speak.
In November 2007, as a sophomore at the University of Montana, I conspired with seven other men to rob an interstate drug trafficker who resided across the street from campus.
I left the plot when the circumstances changed. I was not responsible for any carnage alleged in the ensuing police reports. The city’s attorney office eventually dismissed every charge against me.
Despite avoiding a lifetime felony sentence, I disgraced my family name in Missoula and will forever carry the mark of shame within my family. I will not, however, cower in shame when anyone else tries to embarrass me with an inaccurate article published over a decade ago.
When I run for office again, it will not be because I’m perfect. It will be because I’m hoping to prove you can successfully run for office despite making dumbass decisions earlier in your life.
OHIO SQUEEZES POOR PEOPLE, VETERANS BE DAMNED
Many Ohio towns face a mass exodus of residents and hope to fast-track their population moving back to the abandoned urban core of the city by shaming poor people.
From Sheridan Hendrix of dispatch.com:
LANCASTER — Anna Crawford and her husband, Bill, took advantage of the mild weather Wednesday afternoon to start scraping the peeling blue paint off the exterior of their Lancaster home. Anna has picked out a light gray color to replace the exterior paint.
“The whole house will eventually be ‘Civil War gray,’” she said, “because that’s what this whole thing has felt like.”
In November, the Crawfords received a notice from the city that they needed to repaint their 100-year-old home. Since then, they said, it’s been “a total nightmare.”
Anna, 69, and Bill, 74, are both retired from the U.S. Navy and survive mainly off their military pensions. They’ve lived in their house on North Columbus Street for 35 years.
The exterior paint has been peeling for a while, and the couple knew it was an issue. But repainting the entire three-story house is a challenge for them, Bill said, and hiring someone would be expensive.
I hope an article like this is enough to spark Lancaster rallying around a couple who doesn’t deserve to lose their home. In a functioning country as wealthy as the United States, this shouldn’t even be a story in the first place.
IMPRISONED COLUMBUS COP SHOULD HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED SOONER
Recently arrested Columbus vice cop Andrew Mitchell will soon face a grand jury for murdering Donna Dalton, a 120-pound sex worker he murdered while trying to abduct her off the street without identifying himself.
You might be surprised to learn he was a predatory landlord who should have never had a badge in the first place.
From Melissa Mira Grant of theappeal.org:
The former tenants interviewed by The Appeal described their buildings as neglected and pest-ridden (the city has filed 37 violations on his properties since 2015 for problems like housing code violations and environmental issues). Mitchell also was known for frequent evictions—381 since 1996, according to county records. (Franklin County, where Mitchell is a landlord, has had the highest number of evictions in the state. There were 17,697 evictions in 2018, according to the county’s records.) But Mitchell’s evictions have raised even more questions since the Department of Justice exposed his sexual coercion of tenants.
For Danielle, Mitchell’s request for the photos made her immediately uncomfortable. “Sending nude photos for what?” she recalls asking. He replied with an offer, she said. “If you were to do something like that, then I would be able to take a lot of money off your rent and we could kind of start fresh,” he suggested.
She said no, but a few days later, Mitchell approached her again. “You know, if you’re going to consider sending those photos, you’re going to have to do it soon,” she remembers him saying.
Danielle said she tried to blow it off, but Mitchell was persistent, saying, “Are you going to send them? Are you going to send them?” She said she was clear with him that she was not.
How might a scumbag been allowed to prosper within the city police force? It’d be tough to say without a corresponding federal investigation into the corruption of the vice unit to which Mitchell belonged.
From George Joseph of theappeal.org:
Now, internal Columbus police documents, obtained by The Appeal, suggest that Stormy Daniels’s arresting officers also provided court authorities with a misleading rationale for their undercover operation.
On their arrest reports and sworn court affidavits, the officers claimed that they “entered Sirens Gentleman’s [sic] Club,” where Daniels was performing that night, “as a result of complaints received alleging prostitution and drug activity.”
But in an internal interview afterward with a department investigator, the unit’s supervising commander, Terry Moore, admitted “there was no specific complaint at Sirens being investigated on the date that the arrests occurred,” according to the documents. Nor was Moore aware of “any specific complaint” against Daniels “that had been received by the Vice Section from outside sources.”
When asked whether authorities considered the officers’ statements about the complaints they “received” to be false or misleading, Denise Alex-Bouzounis, a spokesperson for the Columbus Division of Police, wrote in an email, “It would be inappropriate for us to comment,” citing the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the vice unit.
Edward Forman, an attorney suing the Columbus Division of Police on behalf of the two other strip club employees arrested that day, said Moore’s admission to investigators cast serious doubt on the veracity of the officers’ arrest reports. “It’s total bullshit,” he said in a phone call.
Wow, can’t believe the internal investigation that Columbus police conducted into the actions of fellow Columbus police didn’t find any wrongdoing. That must be a coincidence.
AN OHIO STORY ANY MILLENNIAL WILL RECOGNIZE
The Ohio government’s unwillingness to invest in green energy is one of the saddest aspects of living in the Buckeye State. Our state government protects the wealthy few over the interests of workers. Time and time again.
From Brady Dennis and Steven Mufson of washingtonpost.com:
ADAMS COUNTY, Ohio — The barges floating down the Ohio River no longer deliver coal to the two power plants that have stood here for decades, twin sentinels looming over this rural county east of Cincinnati.
The boilers have sat idle since May, when both the J.M. Stuart and Killen power plants closed on the same day. They once provided about 700 jobs but now are among the latest casualties of a declining industry that has seen nearly half of the nation’s coal-fired plants close over the past decade.
The vanishing of coal plants from the American landscape began years ago, but it has persisted under President Trump, who came into office promising to revitalize the coal industry. He has rolled back environmental regulations meant to curb pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, installed a former coal lobbyist as head of the Environmental Protection Agency and tweeted in favor of keeping certain units operating. And yet, utilities have continued to shut down plants
The main reason? Coal can’t compete against cheaper, cleaner alternatives, such as natural gas and solar and wind energy.
…
But in places like Adams County, with a population of about 28,000 and already one of the poorest corners of Ohio, the death of a coal plant also can leave an unmistakable void. When the Stuart and Killen stations closed last year, with them went the area’s highest-paying jobs, its largest employers, its biggest taxpayers and, in many ways, its lifeblood.
The upshot is ghoulish politicians like Larry Householder, Mike Dewine, and Larry Obhof profiteering on short-sighted policy. Hey, it’s not like any of them will be alive when climate change rolls into Ohio.
GIVE ME A TRAIN FOR DAYTON TO COLUMBUS OR GIVE ME DEATH
The result of selling our state government to fossil fuel interests is not realizing the Ohio Hub Plan. I would have doubled Ohio’s GDP last year if I could have been productive on my many travels between Dayton and Columbus without having to pay attention to the interstate.
THOSE WMDs: Sea otters use tools, too… The keeper of the lynching secret… William Barr can’t hide the Mueller Report… Doubts rise about U.S. diplomats in Cuba being attacked… After a century, a voice for the U.S. Salt Industry goes silent… Beto O’Rourke’s charter school problem… The worst disease ever recorded… Elizabeth Warren: “No foreign country should be able to purchase American farmland.”